"But, why?" Anthony was confused. "Your job is awesome, Mom. Why would you leave it just so you can hang out with us more? People have to work. That's what you guys always say."

"Yes," Pam acknowledged. "But I am a…unique case."

"How come?" Jolene asked. "Cuz of the that?" She pointed to Ivy's green hands peeking out from her long-sleeved shirt. "Cuz you already have a job saving the world cuz you're Poison Ivy?"

"Well…yes and no," Pam said after a brief hesitation. "Yes, but not exactly for the reason you think."

"OK…" Jo sat back, crossing her arms and eyeing her Mom suspiciously. "So what's the reason?"

Pam drummed her fingers on the table for a moment, glancing over at Harley for some moral support. Harley offered a small, reassuring nod, and with a sigh, Pam pulled a shoebox out from under her chair and set it gently on the table in front of her.

Jolene moved onto her knees and leaned forward over the table to get a closer look as Pam pulled the lid back. Inside was a stack of photographs, along with some dried rose petals and what seemed to be shards of broken porcelain. The girl frowned. "How come ya keep dead flower in a shoebox, Mom?"

"That's not important right now," Pam said quickly, lifting the photographs out of the box.

"And what about this, huh?" Jo reached into the box and roughly grabbed at one of the shards.

"No, don't!" Pam caught her by the wrist before she could reach it. "She's—it's broken."

Jo pulled her hand away, moving cautiously back into her seat as Pam closed her eyes briefly, resuming the drumming of her fingers on the table.

"Hey, Red?" Harley ventured, gently. "Let's move forward, OK?"

Pam pushed out a forceful breath before opening her eyes once more. "OK," she affirmed, sliding a photograph out of the pile and across the table for Jo and Anthony to examine.

Both took a moment to study it before responding, but a moment was all it took for Anthony's distress to override his artificial coloring. He was a pale green when he tore his eyes away from the picture. "You have another family?"

"And you let your other daughter dress up in old-timey dresses for family pictures?!" Jolene was equally distraught.

"What?" Pam was confused at first, but then she took another look at the picture. "Oh!" She laughed, uncomfortably, "No, that woman was my Mother. That's me." She pointed to the girl in the photo.

"Well how come you wouldn't let us do a theme for our pictures?" Jo demanded.

Harleen sighed. "In hindsight…maybe we should have explained some of this before-hand."

"Right…" Pam tried again. "Do you—how old do you think I am?"

Anthony shrugged. "Younger than Mama, I guess."

Harleen made a face, though Pam wasn't completely sure she meant to. "Actually, she's about 40 years younger," Pam informed them. "See, I was born in 1933. You were born in…what? '71?" she checked with Harley.

"That…makes absolutely zero sense," Anthony forced out a laugh.

"I was 7 here," Pam tapped her finger on the picture in front of them. "Your age, Jo. That was 1940. In 1966…" Pam shuffled through the pile until she found what she was looking for. "I had just earned my PhD…" She slid them the photo Harleen had seen many years ago in the Jason Woodrue section of Poison Ivy's patient file. This was the original copy. "And was employed by this man, here. He was…" she contemplated how best to phrase a description. "Unethical."

"No," Harleen shook her head. "He was evil, Pamela."

The redhead nodded an agreement to the revision. "Evil."

"But…" Jo's brow was furrowed, her face screwed into one big question mark. "Mom, you look don't look any older now. Just prettier."

"So you were…33 here?" Anthony did the math.

"That's right," Pam nodded.

"OK, well, that's what you look like. 30." Anthony slid the photo away. "I don't get how you can look 7 when you're 7, 30 when you're 30, but 30 when you're also…" he did some more quick math. "Mom…are you almost 100 years old?"

"Yes. 88, to be exact." Pam told him. "But you wouldn't know it because of that man in the picture. He…trapped me here. In this body, with this face. He made me Poison Ivy, and Poison Ivy…she doesn't age."

"But so you weren't green when you were really 30?" Jo asked. "He made you green?"

"Yes, and umm…provided me other—desirable physical attributes that I wasn't—that I didn't have before."'

Jo studied the photograph for a moment. "You mean like your boobies?"

"Jolene!" Harley wasn't quite sure why she was so offended on Pamela's behalf, but her face was suddenly red.

Pam placed her hand on the blonde's arm. "No, that's…what I meant."

"Oh my God…" Harley stared straight ahead. "My entire life has been a lie." She then immediately clamped her hand over her mouth. "Holy shit, did I say that out loud?"

"Yeah," Anthony confirmed. "And you swore."

Pam and Jo both ignored the flustered woman, the girl still staring down at the photo. With a delicate finger, she traced the features of her real 30-year-old mother. "How come?" she asked.

"Well…" Pam cleared her throat, shifting slightly in her chair. "He changed me to satisfy two of his needs—both his curious yet sadistic scientific mind, and his…masculine demands."

Jo pursed her lips as the other two table occupants stayed silent. "Did he…did he hurt you in your privates?" She asked.

"Mhm," Pam acknowledged with a nod. "Yes, he did."

The girl finally raised her eyes then, and they were full of tears when she did…but not exactly ones of sadness or mourning, they were angry, her jaw was set. And through gritted teeth she asked, "Is that man dead now?"

"Yes…" Pam nodded, slowly. A bit perplexed by her daughter's reaction. "Has been for about 30 years now."

"Did you kill him?" Was Anthony's question, although his tone was much softer than the one Jolene had taken.

"I did not. Although I would have liked to." Pam admitted. "Batman killed him."

"Do you think it hurt him?" Jolene wondered.

"Yes, I do." Pam assured her. "I like to think his death was very painful."

"Good," Jo said, and there was a certain finality to her words. "Would you ever hurt a girl like that, Anthony?"

The boy looked horrified, his eyes widening at his sister's question. "No way! No, that's the meanest thing a person can do. No way."

"Good," Jo repeated. "Mom," she was looked at Pam sincerely, pointedly, and told her, "I would kill him if he wasn't already dead."

"Jo…" Harleen was a bit jarred by her daughter's reaction, especially as they hadn't had a terribly in depth "rape talk" before. "Why do you say that?"

"Because I hate him," Jolene snapped. "I know this man already. He comes in my head when I close my eyes at night. I see him when I have my scariest dreams."

"This man, specifically?" Pam asked. "You recognize this man?"

Jo nodded ardently. "I can't move and he asks me answers to questions I don't really know, but I always have the right answer. But I don't get scared anymore," she stated, proudly.

"Why not?" Pam breathed.

The girl smiled reassuringly. "Because my name's not 'Pammy'. That's your name, I think. So I'm not scared because he doesn't really wanna talk to me. He wants to talk to you."

Pamela sat, frozen, her mouth hanging dumbly open.

"Mom, is…is that what you remember?" Anthony asked. "Is that what he did to you?"

"That must be how they communicate with you, Jolene." Pam murmured. "You can't hear them…they show you."

"Who?" Jolene questioned, her head cocked innocently.

Tears were beginning to gather in Pam's eyes as well now. "Oh, Sweatpea. I'm so sorry." She got up and walked swiftly around the table, kneeling in front of her daughter's chair and pulling her into a tight hug. "I'm so sorry."

Puzzld, or at least taken by surprise, it took a moment for Jolene to hug back, but when she did it was with one arm around Pam's neck and one hand softly patting her head. "It's OK, Mom…I'm a brave girl just like you."

Anthony was staring blankly into space. "How long will you be trapped?"

"Indefinitely," Harleen answered when Pamela failed to. "Mom's is a 'unique' case because she has all the time in the world, really."

Jolene separated from the redhead to stare down at her. "So you won't ever be an old lady?"

Pam shook her head, but remained silent.

"But Mama will?" Anthony attempted to clarify. "And Jolene and I will? Even though I'm—this?" He held up his green-tinted hands. "Just like you?"

"This isn't what you want, Anthony," Pam exhorted. "And there are a lot of ways in which you and I are different."

The boy's blue eyes turned glassy. "You made us…" his complexion had darkened to a shade of green nearing Ivy's natural hue. "And you made us have to die." He stood up from his seat, slowly, but with his fists clenched. "You didn't want to be a Mom forever, so you made us just like all the other humans, but with all your worst parts." He spat.

"Anthony, I wasn't sure what the side effects would be to using my DNA," Pam reasoned. "I could only run so many tests, and I—"

"You got lazy." Anthony summarized. "So now I hear your voices and have your skin, while Jo has your memories as her nightmares. But we don't have any real powers. That's OK, though, right? Because we're mostly just stupid humans and you'll never get older, so you'll probably have other wives and other kids…"

Harley shot up from her chair. "Anthony Quinzel, knock it off!"

The boy blinked angry tears out of his eyes. "This isn't fair."

"You're right, Anthony. It's not." Pam agreed, "Not in the slightest. Not even a little bit. I know you're frustrated. I was frustrated too. I still am. I wake up every day frustrated. But this is the life I have and you are what I've decided to do with it. I love you and your sister more than I thought I'd ever be able to love anything, so I'm sorry for your suffering, but I am not sorry I made you, and I never will be. Not in a thousand years I won't be."

Anthony looked like he was trying to put together a response, but he ultimately just wiped his face with the sleeve of his sweater, and stormed off towards his bedroom after shooting a final glare at his parents.